Please Help

I have been having this problem with my computer. It shuts down when a program tries to access a cd or dvd in both my optical drives. By shutting down I mean restarting as if I had pressed the reset button. By program I mean any program including windows. This is very frustrating. I have found however that if the disk is in during startup it will work fine. My system specs are:

Windows XP Pro
Mobo: Asus A7n8x Delux
CPU: AMD Athalon 3200xp+ 400fsb
RAM: 768mb PC 3200
HD: 120gb Maxtor ATA133


Filter Driver Load Order Info:

Upper Device Filter: redbook
Device Object: IDE DVD-ROM 16X
Lower Class Filter: Pfc
Lower Class Filter: MxlW2k
Lower Class Filter: dvd43llh


Upper Device Filter: redbook
Device Obeject: _NEC DVD_RW ND-3520A
Lower Class Filter: Pfc
Lower Class Filter: MxlW2k
Lower Class Filter: dvd43llh
Lower Class Filter: imapi

Burning Software used:

Nero 6
Alcohol 120%
Musicmatch Jukebox 9
1Click DVD Copy 4.2
Copy ToDVD SE
DVD X Copy Xpress


In my own efforts to fix the problem I have updated the Nforce2(mobo) drivers. Including the IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers. I also tried to update the ASPI drivers from 4.6 to 4.71, although I am not sure I did it correctly. The ASPI.SYS and the WNASPI32.DLL updated but the WOWPOST.EXE and the WINASPI.DLL did not update.

I hope that I have given you enough info to help me out. Thanks in advance. :confused:

That's a toughy. If all of the drivers are updated, including the mobo's ide controllers, then my best guess would be a hardware issue. It's unlikely that both of your drives went kaput at the same time (especially since they work as long as the disk is in during boot). Has this been happening all along, or did it recently start?

If it was me I'd open up my machine and toy with the setup to see what happens. A few ideas...
1) Try disconnecting one of the drives and see what happens. Then try only the other. If you're using a single cable setup, try connecting each drive to a different connector on the cable.
2)try a different cable on each drive.
3) check to make sure the jumpers are correct. Each controller can have only one master and one slave...and some drives just don't like the role they're in. Sometimes if you just switc the master to be the slave and vice versa they'll behave better.

Take notes so you don't forget what you did. If none of that produces a difference then I'm stumped. Then again, I was stumped to begin with *shrugs*.

1. Can you successful read an optical disk using DOS loaded from a startup floppy or bootable CD?

2. Do you have a diagnostic program on a floppy or CD that will test the optical drives?

3. Go to "Start->Run->msconfig->Diagnostic Startup->at restart use "Normal" mode" and see if the drives work.
This is like safe mode, but with optical drive access.

4. What happens if you try to boot from a bootable CD?

5. did this problem always exist since you installed the drive, or did it work ok at some point then suddenly go awry?